


Parietal

by Jaetion



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 00:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14605170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaetion/pseuds/Jaetion
Summary: With one of the surviving Vuvalini, the Dag and Cheedo wander through the caverns of the Citadel. A fill for singswithtrees!





	Parietal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [singswithtrees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/singswithtrees/gifts).



> I tried to include some archaeological/sociological themes in this - It was fun and interesting learning about cave art!. Hope you like it!

The Citadel was a monstrous combination of city and mountain: half working, half impenetrable, half filled, half life like the people who claimed it. At noon, the brightness of the sun bleached it almost white, though its true colors were shades of orange and yellow, as warm as fire. From the apex, where green grew in the fresh air, the Dag could see to Gastown, to the smudge on the horizon that was the cliffs, to where the rising heat made the endless sand look like water, like a ghost of the ocean that Miss Giddy said used to be. Top was the best, with only the sky able to rise above her. 

Inside could be dark. The deep rooms, the low levels were lit by tins of flames or strings of buzzing bulbs that brought in abnormal light. Joe’s War Boys burrowed into the rock like they’d find warmth or comfort in its bowels, but their rocky beds and cavern rooms were cold and sometimes even damp - though not enough to get water. Dag had seen the innards three times: once on the way up to the Vault as a sprog, once on the way down with Furiosa at the helm, and then the climb back up after Fury Road.

She almost didn’t go a fourth time, but Furiosa’s Vuvalinis wanted to inspect the place and with the Imperator still out of commission, someone had to go in her stead. One of the Vuvalini, with her hair silver and thick like wires - like tarnished silver, Dag thought of her, a beautiful color for a remarkable woman - set off with a gun at her hip but with her hands full of papers. She’d shown them all the stash of rolls, had the girls read the tiny print that her eyes couldn’t make out. Blueprints and drawings and designs and proposals, all carefully preserved by Corpus, who’d handed them over as a peace-offering. And maybe a bribe. The Vuvalini had taken them, recognizing true treasure when they saw it.

And so they went.

Dag reached back and before she even had to ask, Cheedo’s hand slipped into her own. “Come on, Cheedo,” she said as Silver’s determination spread, “we need to see where the roots go.”

They grabbed supplies like they were on an expedition - canteen of water, Dag’s bag inherited from the Keeper of the Seeds, an extra shawl for Silver’s shoulders, a hand-lamp to light up whatever pit they found. And a knife each to hang on at their hips. With more of the former Wretched moving in, more of the former Pups moving around, and more of the former Milk Mothers moving up, there were plenty of voices and noises that traveled up through the passages like unseen participants on their journey. Toast and Capable were elsewhere - they didn’t need to be together all the time anymore, five (and now without Angharad, four) parts of a single unit, five (four) parts of a single person. But Dag was pleased that she had Cheedo, that freedom didn’t have to mean solitude.

Cheedo’s voice was low - not the uncertain whisper it had been before, but still quiet, protecting her words, “I keep thinking about… him. I know he’s not here - I know! But this place is scary. All these twisting paths…”

“Like a maze on purpose,” Dag agreed. She squeezed Cheedo’s hand.

“Smeg,” Silver said as she sketched away on her paper. “All this space, all these people, and he designed it? Man didn’t know architecture from his ass. Waste, that’s what this is. Wasteland for damn sure.”

“This place, it isn’t his anymore.” Dag spat the words out irritably. Being deep inside was already making her itchy. Dag bent down to scratch at her ankle, pushing down the sock hand-woven by the Vuvalini. The pattern of bottles and leaves was quickly getting covered by dust. Her heavy boots, these ones donated by a willing War Pup and not stolen from a War Boy, kicked up more clouds of dry sand. Wearing pants, it was easier to keep clean, even if she was stirring up more shit. With a snorting sniff, she rubbed at her nose to dislodge dust in there, too, and then wiped her hands down her vest. Walls, walls, walls - blankness unyielding. She couldn’t wait to get back outside.

“It feels the same.” Cheedo hurried to catch Dag’s elbow and leaned against her. Fondly Dag bent down and brushed a kiss on her forehead under the beaded band she wore there.

Silver’s voice echoed down the hall, “We can start changing it.”

Dag was interested but it was Cheedo who asked the question, “How?”

Waving a roll of paper like it was a thunderstick, Silver motioned around, finally pointed at Cheedo’s head. “Same way you started.”

The headband. The vest. The belt around Dag’s waist with bottlecaps making the buckle. The long tunic that Cheedo wore, embroidered at the hem. Cheedo’s long fingers twirled into her hair, up to the feather that had been braided there in memory of Valkyrie. Dag tugged the tendril and gave Cheedo a smile when the girl looked up. Cheedo’s eyes were dark with ideas.

At the Vault they both stayed outside the metal door - to be removed, melted, smelted into something useful as soon as Furiosa was up and able to oversee it. Silver poked her head in but didn’t go in deep when she saw Dag and Cheedo’s hesitation.

“This can wait,” she decided aloud. “Maybe make it into another greenhouse, maybe. Who painted?”

“All the words? Miss Giddy.” Dag answered and closed her eyes to send a whispered prayer off to her spirit, her ghost, her bones - whatever their teacher had become.

They left the Vault behind quickly enough. There were enough other places to go anyway - Miss Giddy said it was like a bee hive, an ant colony, full of movement. And bugs. All they had were maggots; the pollinators that would have helped Dag’s gardens were extinct, dead even before the wars. 

“Plenty of room for, well, room.” Silver stood hands on her hips to survey the rising ceiling. “Make sleeping areas out of these places, if you all aren’t planning on re-inhabiting the old space.”

“Old space,” Dag thought, rolling the term around her head debris rolling in the wind. A tidy way of describing what had been their prison. She almost snapped that at the Vuvalini, but then calmed - maybe it was the gentle squeeze back from Cheedo. Just an old space, that’s what it could be. 

They walked, walked, walked down the roughly formed stairs, smoothly worn by boots and feet . A line from one of Miss Giddy’s books wound through Dag’s thoughts: “Thus I descended out of the first circle, down to the second, that less space begirds.” 

She dragged her fingertips on the stone. Sometimes there were metal supports, beams that rose like trees up out of the rock. Not good trees, not her trees. Their shadows cast long shapes on the walls and when she wiggled her hands it looked like monsters on the planes. Cheedo snickered and for a few steps they giggled together, ignoring Silver as she rapped her knuckles on the beams and talked about distribution of weight.

Everywhere they went they got attention, eyes drawn to them like water flowing through pumps. Silver answered questions by shooting out short answers, not letting anyone interrupt her too much, but still watering them all with information.

Shadows appeared at her periphery until a group of them gathered. War Boys. Finding strength in numbers, they arose - wordburger: the walking dead, Dag thought to herself. Most dead, most claimed by Fury Road, but they weren’t free of them all yet. Capable was more forgiving of them, Toast more scowling, and Dag was glad she had plants to think about and not people in general. But Furiosa’s crew had one leg up on all the other War Boys: they’d been Furiosa’s. And even after she traitored them and left them in the dust, their old habits didn’t die easier than them.

A few of them started to follow at a distance, slowed maybe by their still-healing bang-ups. It was easier to deal with them - even look at them - once they'd all been washed off. No more white paint; they looked mostly human, although all their carved scars were still there, unmistakable reminders of smeg-faced Joe. 

Every time they went into a new area, the War Boys got closer. Silver didn’t eye them with Dag’s suspicion, but she didn’t pay them much attention either. “You know,” she mused aloud as they wove their way through the tunnels, “the ones with more natural light: we could start growing here.”

“Grow green in here?” Cheedo asked. She put her hand against the wall. It came back dusty with crumbling dirt. “How?”

“Check that bag,” Silver advised Dag. “Keeper of the Seeds’ had all kinds, not just for eating. Bet we can get things to grow, types that don’t need deep soil or as much water.”

Dag shifted the bag of seeds onto her other hip, arm around it protectively.

“You got what in there?” one of Furiosa’s Boys asked, bending over her shoulder. She was tall; he was even taller, like a Crow Walker on stilts. “Seeds? That all?”

“Back off, War Boy. You don’t understand, then you don’t get to see.” She turned away, annoyed at his dismissive tone. The Boy made a low, apologetic mumble.

“But anything else? Bullets? Shards of anything?”

“No bullets in here. The anti-bullet,” she said, thinking of Angharad and her anti-seeds.

“Thought Imperator Furiosa’s clan were fighters,” another one said. This one had goggles on his forehead and when Dag looked over at him, he pulled them down over his eyes.

“No unnecessary killing,” Dag said, Angharad still haunting her thoughts. “You know what that means? It means that there’s time to fight, yeah, but there’s a time for peace. And that’s now.”

The War Boy looked doubtful, his face scrunching up around the scars on his nose and cheeks, but he didn’t try to argue with her - maybe because she’d once been a wife, maybe because she had Furiosa’s ear now, or maybe, Dag thought, because he thought there was a grain of truth in her words. With his goggles on, she couldn’t see into his eyes. With her headscarf on, maybe he couldn’t get a decent read on her either. Good, she thought, with a bit of Toast’s spitefulness.

Silver pulled out a small can, dust flaking as she struggled to open it.

“Paint,” said one of the War Boys. He had scars carved like flames on his arms and when he jerked his thumb at his chest, the muscles flexing and making the fire undulate. “For us.”

“Used to be for you,” Dag retorted. 

“Thought it was against the law now!”

“It’s not against the law,” Silver said quickly to that. “Bad for your health, this paint. Furiosa doesn’t want you dying boys. Covering yourself in all day everyday, it was no wonder you get sick.”

The Boy still followed along, somewhat beside Dag, maybe a step behind. She saw him glance back - there were a couple of other Boys skulking in the shadows and he gave them a sort of invitational shrug. 

With a pop the can opened and Silver gave a pleased barking laugh. “Right then. Here, Dag, watch this. Wish we had brushes - Something to look for down the line. Here’s a spot.”

“What am I looking for?” Dag asked as she came up with her bag.

“See the light? Bet it comes in a fair amount during the day. Enough to plant a succulent. Tiny seeds, maybe in an envelope. We’ll check on this later, make sure it’s good. X marks the spot!” With her fingers she spattered on a symbol.

The War Boy next to her bristled - probably thought it was sacrilegious, using their paint like that - but he kept silent and his mates thankfully followed his lead.

"I’m not the best at this," Silver continued. She smeared her fingers unto the wall again, maybe cleaning them off. "That was Madi, our artist." She paused to do the hand motion for remembrance and Cheedo and Dag did that same, the War Boys squinting in suspicion. As they walked to the next room, Silver dipped her fingers into the put again and then paused in contemplation. Beside Dag, Cheedo watched wide, interested eyes. The stone wall was as blank and barren as the sands, an expanse that was just waiting for something to spring up.

"Wish it were brown, rich brown like soil in the sunlight," Silver said. "That's a real color."

And then she began.

An arc, arching up and as long as Dag was tall. Like a curve of a sand dune. She pressed forward, almost against Silver's side, and sensed the War Boys coming in too, everyone watching. Silver scooped up more, started to draw on that line. Under her hand figures were born - people, Dag was quick enough to recognize. Silver paused, considered, added thinner lines that hung from the hips. Clothes, a dress, dangling jewelry, as beautiful as what the Vuvalini created and wore - so different than War Boys stark, spare figures.

A tall one, then shorter ones at its side. "Furiosa?" Dag guessed and Silver chuckled in agreement. 

"Sure is. Her belt, her arms, this one's her metal one, with dangles to show it off. Here, see if anyone get this one."

Her eager audience watched as she started on the next. A big figure, big as the person, long legs bent oddly - Not a person, then. With a tail. 

"Mediocre," said at War Boy next to her, and Cheedo hissed at him to keep quiet. He sputtered to explain himself, "not even the Wretched look like that, and I've seen them all."

"It's not a person," Silver confirmed. "Kangaroo. Wonder if we still have them."

"What’s so great about a kangaroo?"

"They're an animal from before. Before we killed the world," Cheedo explained and the War Boys muttered to themselves. "Really! We have a book about them with pictures."

"We aren’t the same without them. Maybe we aren’t us any more. Here," Silver said, and handed the can over to Cheedo, "you give it a go."

Beside her, the War Boy pulled his goggles down to hang around his neck. He reached into his pockets and with a sort of sheepish expression, eyes down, shoulders bent, submissive even though Furiosa wasn't around, he pulled out a little can of his own. "Know I'm not supposed to have this. Boss'll be pissed that I didn't hand it over like the orders said."

Dag swung her bag of seeds around and loosened the bracelet around her wrist. "Trade you for it."

"Shiny," said another War Boy. He put his four-fingered hand on the goggle War Boy's shoulder. "Good trade. Something from a Wife, blessed be 'em."

"Just making a trade, for chrystler's sake. What's your name?" Dag asked as he tentatively took the bracelet. "Can't just call you War-Boy-With-Goggles forever."

"Third."

"Third?"

"Yeah, third on the crew, third gear, you know."

"I'm the Dag. Not a wife, you ken?"

"Righto!"

From her pockets she fished out a small blade and deftly she flipped the lid open. The paint was cool under her fingers when she scooped out some - almost like the mud from the Green Place - and with a grin for Cheedo, she smeared an arc onto the wall, like Silver’s dune. Or, she thought as she squinted her eyes at it, the bending stem of a plant.

Leaves, then petals. 

"Looks like polecats!" Third said excitedly.

"Well it's not," she snapped back. 

"So what's it then?" the War Boy with the missing finger asked.

"Name?"

He flushed under her attention. "Tearout."

"The Dag,” she said, even though he’d heard her introduce herself before. Still felt good saying it, naming. “Look - It's a flower. Part of a plant. Leaves, yeah? And petals."

"With a ‘t,’ not ‘pedal’ like in a car," Cheedo added, remember her literacy lessons well. "They're different words."

"What are you doing, ducky?" Dag asked her, glad for an excuse to embrace Cheedo and turn her back on the Boys. They were studying her flower like they couldn’t reason it out.

“Hand print. I made a mess of the boat - where I used to live, remember? Before the Citadel? - so I just -” She slapped her hand on the wall again, leaving behind another copy of palm.

It didn’t have to be drawings of people or things, Dag thought, a simple realization that still seemed revelatory. As she walked behind Silver she trailed her fingers, leaving lines of paint like roads for the War Boys to follow. Another room - part of the imperators’ dens - just waiting for them. And Dag felt ideas pooling in her until her fingers nearly itched to paint. Like digging in the garden, getting her hands covered, getting something ready.

Circles, circles in circles with a dot in the middle, like a Milking Mother's breast. Dag drew the symbols on her hands, now huge, bit enough for the cluster of War Boys behind her to see. "The moon," she told them. "Here's Mercury, then Venus, the two planets closest to the sun. Fleet-footed Mercury, spinning 'round and 'round, revolving like a tire. And Venus is our twin, or maybe our lover, just like us, on the same drive."

"They're what?" asked another War Boy. 

"Planets. Gods in the ether. Over the blue sky, above the black sky, higher than the satellites. Past the moon. Out, out, so far that they just look like dots. A tellyscope shows them for what they are: planets, like us. Like Earth. This means Mercury, see, his horns. And this is Venus."

"Same symbol for woman," Silver added, which baffled the War Boys more.

"Writing with letters, with symbols, look at it. Grammar glamour," Dag said dreamily. DAG, she painted under the other images. And then herself: leg long legs, two long arms reaching up as if to the sky.

Third prodded one dripping stroke and then danced his fingers down the wall, little prints fading away until there was just the hint of paint, and then nothing.

Tearout lurched forward. “Let me try!”

“Oi, who’s got more paint? Runner, know you got deep pockets!”

“Fuck you. I handed it over to Ace good and proper.”

“Aw, fuck.”

They weren’t crowding Cheedo and Dag, but it was clear enough that War Boys were itching to art, too. It didn’t seem right to lord it over them, especially when it had been theirs to begin with, but she still smirked at them as she passed the can of paint. Cheedo and Silver moved on, the Vuvalini instructing Cheedo where to leave splotches of paint for more plants, which Dag could see Cheedo turn into little suns.

But the War Boys -

Skulls, flaming skulls, that’s what they did first. Skulls floating over bodies, flames like tentacles around them all. Death, death, in only a few moments. Dag’s hands curled up, fingers tucked away into fists, and even Silver paid attention to them now. “This was what you remembered and what you want to be remembered,” the Vuvalini said with a shake of her head.

Which slowed them, but Dag wanted them stopped completely. “No more Joe,” she said. “None of him. Not here, not anymore.”

“Not just battle fodder,” Cheedo added, another piece of Angharad’s rhetoric and wisdom. “Not breeders.”

No, no, no - it was like they were listing even more rules for the War Boys to obey. Dag stood fuming furiously and refused to take back her words, even though she knew she’d veered far from the path of diplomacy. 

But Cheedo was still speaking, “You can remember War Boys and what you did,” she told them. “Friends and crew. They did more than kill and die, right?”

Third started again, glancing down at Cheedo for her permission or approval as he painted more. War Boys again, probably, Dag thought as she watched the little people appeared. Or maybe they were Wretched, she thought with increasing attention. He gave them large, circular heads and then finer lines - scars and goggles, one person with a single eye, someone with only one ear. People. No skulls. No flames.

“Saw a big lizard once. Slit almost shit himself,” a War Boy with a deep scar down his side said. Third gave him the paint and he stuck his tongue out as he tried to capture it. When Dag held out her hand she got the paint back and she tried it too - lizard, with a long, kangaroo-like tail, short legs.

“Better,” she said to all of them. Dag looked back at the hallway; the flickering lights showed their designs still, and now other people were looking too. In the next room she wrote DAG WAS HERE and Cheedo added a funny looking face. Maybe they could do something for Angharad, paint her, paint her words for everyone else to see. To learn.

“You been up high yet?” Dag asked Third and other War Boys, and they shook their heads. “We were already up there, but Silver wants to take another look at one of the rooms. You should see what’s written in there.”

A casual invitation, tossed over her shoulder as she strode with boot-heavy steps to catch up to Cheedo and Silver. Angharad and Miss Giddy’s messages remained in the Vault - in the old space, she corrected herself. Plenty of light in there, filtering in through the glass, so maybe they could grow Keeper of the Seeds’ bounty. They’d make it theirs - make, not take. Paint and grow and flower, until the old skeleton was covered. Pleased with all those thoughts, Dag bent over to kiss Cheedo again, and this time the girl tilted her face up to kiss back.


End file.
